Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
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sshamphavi.bsky.social
Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
@sshamphavi.bsky.social
PhD student at university of Freiburg in @archaellum´s lab; @sfb1381. Working with archaea and archaeal cell surface structures
Pinned
Bacteria with archaella, who would have thought that this existed. Happy to share that it does 🎉and we just published it today in @natmicrobiol.nature.com 🎉🥳. Congrats to everyone involved! 🦠
Happy to share that our story on the bacterial archaellum was published today in @natmicrobiol.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congrats to the authors: @sshamphavi.bsky.social @loumollat.bsky.social @mariejoest.bsky.social Najwa Taib and @sgribaldo.bsky.social
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
Pleased to share our review on S-layers with @bupbuse.bsky.social, Andriko von Kügelgen, and @tbharat-lab.bsky.social, where we explore recent advances and argue that deeper insight into S-layers is key to deciphering microbial interactions and community organization. @mpi-bio-fml.bsky.social
November 13, 2025 at 9:16 PM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
1/6
PhD /PostDoc positions available. Exploration of physiological functions of the cell fusogen Fusexin1 in Archaea.
In a collaborative project between the Albers lab (Freiburg) and the Podbilewicz lab (Technion) starting in January 2026.
November 12, 2025 at 7:53 AM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
An Asgard archaeon with internal membrane compartments

Brilliant study led by @fmacleod.bsky.social and Andriko von Kügelgen. Tight collaboration with @buzzbaum.bsky.social and lab. Congrats to all authors!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
November 7, 2025 at 10:44 AM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
🥳 Today marks the start of the lab of former postdoc @florianwollweber.bsky.social at @embl.org Grenoble!
www.embl.org/groups/wollw...
Florian-- we will miss you dearly and wish you much success!

With us, Florian applied multiscale imaging 🔬to Asgard archaea ...👇
November 1, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
Forgot to post the recently published version of this paper on the role of a minor pilin-like protein in surface sensing journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
October 31, 2025 at 6:54 PM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
Lab’s first paper is out!! We show the first structures of #Asgard #chromatin by #cryo-EM 🧬❄️
Asgard histones form closed and open hypernucleosomes. Closed are conserved across #Archaea, while open resemble eukaryotic H3–H4 octasomes and are Asgard-specific. More here: www.cell.com/molecular-ce...
October 28, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
Structural phylogenetics unravels the evolutionary diversification of communication systems in gram-positive bacteria and their viruses | Nature Structural & Molecular Biology https://www.nature.com/articles/s41594-025-01649-8
Structural phylogenetics unravels the evolutionary diversification of communication systems in gram-positive bacteria and their viruses - Nature Structural & Molecular Biology
Using a new method called FoldTree, the authors compare proteins on the basis of their shape to construct more accurate family trees over long evolutionary timescales and capture distant relationships where sequence information becomes less reliable.
www.nature.com
October 17, 2025 at 10:46 AM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
Our Pyrodictium cannulae paper is out in its final form! Cannulae assemble into calcium-stabilized tubular filaments stable at 100 °C—a unique archaeal cell–cell connection. Led brilliantly by @mikesleutel.bsky.social & @vinceconticello.bsky.social.

www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-64120-8
October 14, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
🧐Checkout our preprint revealing the stepwise firing💥 mechanism of a Contractile Injection System @xujwet.bsky.social&@chipericson.bsky.social trapped the complex by structure-guided engineering🧪 in multiple intermediate states and imaged them by multimodal #cryoEM❄️🔬
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
October 8, 2025 at 9:18 PM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
Out in Science Advances: Our #cryoEM structure of HFTV1, a virus infecting the halophile #archaea. *First full atomic structure (containing all structural proteins) of any tailed virus!* Congrats and thanks to all co-authors and our fantastic collaborators! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Cryo-EM resolves the structure of the archaeal dsDNA virus HFTV1 from head to tail
This structure of an archaeal tailed virus (arTV) provides detailed insights into arTV assembly and infection mechanisms.
www.science.org
October 6, 2025 at 11:31 AM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
Look at this nice cover: beautiful archaella, image made by @sshamphavi.bsky.social !

Thanks also to Marta Rodeiguez for keeping the EM im shape in @ottlab.bsky.social lab!

At @biologyunifreiburg.bsky.social at @uni-freiburg.de @sfb1381.bsky.social @cibss.bsky.social
Some keen Observations in Our October issue!

🦠 Cancer microbiome
🌊 Marine microbes in warming oceans
🌐 broad-range phages
🧬 genetically minimised Salmonella
🔧 Viral infection mechanisms
🧪 Oxaloacetate antiviral defence

and more, here: www.nature.com/nmicrobiol/v...
October 2, 2025 at 8:28 AM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
Our October issue is out now!

The images are negatively stained electron micrographs taken from archaella bundles isolated from the archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius.

Check the issue out here:
www.nature.com/nmicrobiol/v...
October 1, 2025 at 9:26 PM
Beautiful archaellum filaments on the cover 😍🦠 Thanks to the Imaging Facility within MIAP at @biologyunifreiburg.bsky.social that made it possible! Curious how we got there? check our latest publication: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
October 1, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
Spinning into new evolutionary territory🌀🦠: The latest @natmicrobiol.nature.com paper from the lab of our Speaker Sonja Albers uncovers bacterial species with an ATP-driven archaellum for motility. Great work from @sshamphavi.bsky.social and our Cryo-EM facility
Happy to share that our story on the bacterial archaellum was published today in @natmicrobiol.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congrats to the authors: @sshamphavi.bsky.social @loumollat.bsky.social @mariejoest.bsky.social Najwa Taib and @sgribaldo.bsky.social
September 18, 2025 at 2:23 PM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
Bacteria with archaella, who would have thought that this existed. Happy to share that it does 🎉and we just published it today in @natmicrobiol.nature.com 🎉🥳. Congrats to everyone involved! 🦠
Happy to share that our story on the bacterial archaellum was published today in @natmicrobiol.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congrats to the authors: @sshamphavi.bsky.social @loumollat.bsky.social @mariejoest.bsky.social Najwa Taib and @sgribaldo.bsky.social
September 17, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
The state has funded a large amount of initiatives to make lab work more green and sustainable 🌱, including the "Nachhaltiger Bio-Campus Freiburg" proposal by our @corneliaklose.bsky.social & Henriette Rübsam. Congratulations!
September 4, 2025 at 12:37 PM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
Better ML for cryo-ET starts with better benchmarks.

We built a phantom cryo-ET dataset (~500 tomograms) + hosted a Kaggle challenge.

The result: community models beat expert tools.

Read more in the @natmethods.nature.com article that just came out:
🔗 doi.org/10.1038/s415...
A realistic phantom dataset for benchmarking cryo-ET data annotation - Nature Methods
A standardized, realistic phantom dataset consisting of ground-truth annotations for six diverse molecular species is provided as a community resource for cryo-electron-tomography algorithm benchmarki...
doi.org
August 26, 2025 at 2:22 PM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
Started a PhD in the field of Archaea, ended up writing a paper about a bacterium! Enjoy new insights into the cell biology of Litorilinea aerophila, a member of the Chloroflexota 🦠
🚨 Imagine a bacterium that refuses to follow the textbook:
It grows as tangled filaments, divides unevenly, reshapes its own membranes… and even builds grappling hooks.
Meet Litorilinea aerophila — and here’s why it blew our minds.
August 20, 2025 at 10:55 AM
Chloroflexi rules! Thrilled to share our latest preprint on this amazing bacterial (😱) organism of Chloroflexota. Long filaments, fascinating cell surface structures😍 Kudos to everyone involved and especially @mariejoest.bsky.social!
🚨 Imagine a bacterium that refuses to follow the textbook:
It grows as tangled filaments, divides unevenly, reshapes its own membranes… and even builds grappling hooks.
Meet Litorilinea aerophila — and here’s why it blew our minds.
August 20, 2025 at 11:22 AM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
(1/5)For over a century, the hunt for new antibiotics has focused almost exclusively on bacteria and fungi. Today, that paradigm shifts. By coupling state-of-the-art AI with the vast, largely uncharted diversity of Archaea, we open a new frontier for molecular discovery.
Deep learning reveals antibiotics in the archaeal proteome - Nature Microbiology
Use of artificial intelligence to mine proteomes of archaea led to the discovery of archaeasins, antimicrobials that kill drug-resistant bacteria in laboratory and animal models, offering a promising ...
www.nature.com
August 12, 2025 at 11:11 AM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
Check out 🧐 our new preprint 📜:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Congrats🎉 to @vasilgaisin.bsky.social and Corina Hadjicharalambous, who studied contractile injection systems directly in hot spring♨️ bacterial mats🦠
#microsky #teamtomo #Chloroflexota
August 12, 2025 at 7:22 AM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
Hi all, check out our new preprint where we uncover:"Regulation of YAP activity by nuclear G-actin binding", www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
#actin #YAP/TAZ #transcription #nucleus with help from Sonja-Verena Albers
‪@archaellum.bsky.social‬
Regulation of YAP activity by nuclear G-actin binding
The Yes-associated protein YAP belongs to the TEAD (TEA/ATTS domain) transcriptional co-activators that shuttle between cytoplasm and nuclear compartment. YAP and its paralog TAZ (transcriptional co-a...
www.biorxiv.org
July 31, 2025 at 6:34 AM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
Finally out of embargo!!
Happy to be among the recipients of a Chaire d'excellence from @agencerecherche.bsky.social
www.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/fr/media/37482
to further knowledge on #archaea #methanogens of the human #microbiome. We'll be very busy for the next 5 years @pasteur.fr !!
Projets lauréats Chaires d'excellence en biologie santé 2025 | enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr
www.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr
July 7, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Reposted by Shamphavi Sivabalasarma
After 5 amazing years @pilhoferlab.bsky.social I'm starting my lab @embl.org Grenoble this November embl.org/wollweber
We'll image Asgard archaea and many other strange microbes ( #archaeasky, #protistsonsky..) to understand eukaryogenesis
First job ad: #teamtomo scientist!🔬❄️ tinyurl.com/2rdu2ze6
June 27, 2025 at 10:58 AM